Everything changes. From stars lightyears away to the cells in your body. It’s inevitable. But that doesn’t mean we don’t still freak out about it. An obituary for romances, supernovas, and the fear of death itself – sometimes changing means ending, but an ending doesn’t always have to be The End.

2 thoughts on “Orbituary”

It’s the last taboo. Try it sometime. Talk about death to someone and they will eye the exit sign within seconds.

Val Cotic talks about death in Orbituary, her death, our deaths and her acceptance of it.

If that sounds morbid, in the hands of Cotic, it’s wry and exhilarating at times as she plunges down the rabbit hole of The Great Unknown.

Cotic the writer frames the issue of her death within a exploration of atoms, mass and energy, musings on the great unknown and a tale of a budding relationship to its denouement.

Cotic the performer is up to the heavy lifting of her ambitious script, deftly switching from the three dramatic devices back and forth and back again, letting the thematic linkages subtly bleed into each other like a John Coltrane solo.

Her only props are a dozen file boxes which she presses into service as atoms, packing boxes for the beginning and end of the relationship, and finally, her grave.

By play’s end, Cotic has pulled you into her peace with death. Yes, her molecules (not embalmed as she made comically clear) will become new atoms to create more life in the soil. And one suspects that the panic she felt when thinking of death has been converted to something resembling the understanding she spoke of that death can be motivating.

Orbituary ends as it begins with a recitation of Cotic’s obituary, albeit with the panic replaced by acceptance.

The way Cotic masterfully weaves the personal with the profound and back again is what makes Orbituary such a compelling watch. Death is still a taboo subject but not for Cotic. And maybe not for anyone who takes in this moving meditation on life, death, relationships and atoms.

At the end of Valerie Cotic’s Orbituary, she states, in describing the end of the life cycle of a star, that the remaining gases, elements, and debris, “have the potential for some pretty amazing things.” It’s an apt description of this play, which though parallelling relationships and existential angst about death with the birth and death of a star, finds itself more like a moon — stuck in stasis between opposing gravitational forces.

Cotic opens and closes the play describing herself, using terms like “opinionated” and “emotionally intense,” but unfortunately that fails to shine through the production. The acting is pleasant, but for such weighty material remains superficial.

The plot incorporates three separate, but intertwined, narrative arcs: a scientific discussion about the birth and death of stars; the beginning and dissolution of a relationship; and Cotic’s own existential angst over the concept of death. The three arcs tie up nicely in a bow at the end, but it feels there’s so much more to unwrap.

It’s apt that empty boxes are used for staging throughout because there’s a solid foundation for a deep and moving story, but the guts are missing. In the end we’re presented with a pleasant production that’s entertaining, but not gripping. It presents materials that are familiar and have been presented in other forms — some better, some worse. And it features characters that are either too similar in nature or too much of a stereotype to offer any introspection.

For a first orbit around the sun, the play offers a solid foundation. But there’s the potential for so much more. And, hopefully, after another pass through the solar system, it will return more refined, more reflective, and displaying the amazing things — and the full strength of Cotic’s personality — that’s promised.